Should We Want A Bipartisan FCC?

That’s the question posed by Mark Jamison, a visiting Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communication, and Technology who serves as Director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida. Jamison is a part of a trio of AEI scholars who have been selected by Trump to oversee the FCC’s transition from former Chairman Tom Wheeler to new Chairman Ajit Pai.

Now, Jamison answers his query of whether we need a bipartisan FCC by saying, “The short answer is, ‘No!’ … but not for the reasons that you might imagine.”

He writes:

It’s not because, as our former president famously boasted, “Elections have consequences,” and now Republicans are in charge. It’s also not because the agency should just do the right thing, regardless of who disagrees.

It’s because in an independent regulatory agency like the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), political alliances should be left at the door. That has not been the case the past few years and now is the time for change.